Amazon nations seek a common voice on climate change

Eight Amazon nations urged industrialized countries on Tuesday to do more to help preserve the world’s largest rainforest as their leaders met at a major summit in Brazil to chart a common course on how to combat climate change.

They said the task of stopping the destruction of the rainforest can’t fall to just a few countries when climate change has been caused by many.

The members of the newly revived Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, or ACTO, hope a united front will give them a major voice in global environment talks.

“It is time to look at the heart of our continent and consolidate, once and for all, our Amazon identity,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The leaders aim to fuel much-needed economic development in their countries while preventing the Amazon’s ongoing demise “from reaching a point of no return,” according to a joint declaration issued on Tuesday, the first day of the two-day summit.

Some scientists say that when 20 percent to 25 percent of the forest is destroyed, rainfall will dramatically decline, transforming more than half of the rainforest to tropical savannah, with immense biodiversity loss.

Some environmental groups expressed frustration with the joint declaration, saying it is largely a compilation of good intentions with little in the way of commitments, while the region’s largest Indigenous organization praised the inclusion of two of their main demands.

The summit reinforces Lula’s strategy to leverage global concern for the Amazon’s preservation. Emboldened by a 42 percent drop in deforestation during his first seven months in office, he has sought international financial support for forest protection.

The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India. Two-thirds of it lies in Brazil, with seven other countries and one territory sharing the remaining third. Governments have historically viewed it as an area to be colonized and exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples.

Leaders of Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil are attending the summit along with the vice president of Venezuela, the prime minister of Guyana and ministers from Ecuador and Suriname.

All the countries have ratified the Paris climate accord, which requires signatories to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But cross-border cooperation has historically been scant, undermined by low trust, ideological differences and the lack of government presence.

The members of ACTO — convening for only the fourth time in the organization’s 45-year existence — demonstrated on Tuesday they aren’t fully aligned on key issues.

Forest protection commitments have been uneven. And the “Belem Declaration,” the gathering’s official proclamation issued Tuesday, didn’t include a shared commitment to zero deforestation by 2030, as some had hoped. Brazil and Colombia have already made that commitment. The Climate Observatory, a network of dozens of environmental and social groups, as well as Greenpeace and The Nature Conservancy lamented the lack of concrete pledges in the declaration.